Telangana programmes aim at poverty alleviation, creating opportunities: KTR

Hyderabad: Efforts will be made to discourage people from opting to purchase vehicles including cars, tractors, harvesters and others under Dalit Bandhu and T-Pride schemes. Their Increasing numbers will reduce the demand and affect the economic growth of beneficiaries. Instead, focus will be on encouraging a group of beneficiaries coming together to set up manufacturing units as they will provide employment opportunities, said Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao.

Speaking after inaugurating the Business Facilitation Centre and Model Career Centre of industry body Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) at Saifabad on Wednesday, he said several industrialists and investors from other States were seeking schemes being implemented by Telangana in their respective States. “The development and welfare programmes implemented by Telangana State in the past eight years have become an inspiration to other States of the country. Only the opposition parties fail to recognise them,” he said.

Whether it is America, India or Telangana, the challenge before all is employment generation. While the Telangana Government is taking steps to fill the vacancies in the Government wings, the total employment number will be limited. Youth should focus on self-employment or entrepreneurship as the latter will create employment opportunities for others. In this context, the Telangana Government has formulated and implemented many programmes.

He explained that Dalit Bandhu is not a dole but an affirmative action to create new opportunities, create and distribute wealth. “Many want to see Dalit Bandhu scheme fail to politically attack the Government,” he said. TS is also focused on tribal, OBCs, and economically backward classes. Our foucs is alleviating poverty and not removing the poor (gharibon ko hatau) by the Modi Government,” he said.

Under the State’s industrial policy TS-iPASS Telangana has so far given approvals to about 20,000 industrial units and fetched investments worth Rs 2.35 lakh crore and has succeeded in creating employment to about 16 lakh people in the last eight years. TS-iPASS also gave the entrepreneurs a right to self-certification. This has ushered in transparency and removed corruption in the activities of the industries department.

“Some people may agree and some may not with this. We divide ourselves on the basis of (manmade) caste and religion. While everyone is created equal, the opportunities are not equal. .. there are two castes.. one with money and one with no money,” Rama Rao said.

While the State now prides in implementing the Dalit Bandhu and Mission Kakatiya, these programmes actually had a beginning in the 80s when the Chief current Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao was elected as an MLA for Siddipet. “During 1987-89, When KCR became Siddipet MLA, a programme called Dalita Chaitanya Jyoti was taken up for empowerment of Dalits. Scaled up, it becomes Dalit Bandhu. In another programme, KCR got a 65 km pipeline laid from Manair in Karimnagar to Siddipet to supply drinking water to all houses. This is the genesis of Mission Bhagiratha,” Rama Rao explained.

Among other aspects, Telangana sorted out the power shortage in real quick time. Before 2014, industrialists staged protests demanding electricity supply and did not mind paying extra. The Chief sat in a marathon seven hour meeting with the industry representatives to know their problems. TS-iPASS was designed based on the feedback received from the industry, he said.

The State has set up 973 gurukulams and about five lakh students are studying them. The Government is spending about Rs ,6000 crore per year in providing quality education through these.

Industries Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan, TSIIC Chairman Bala Mallu, Industries Commissioner Krishna Bhaskar, TSIIC Managing Director EV Narasimha Reddy, DICCI Founder Chairman Milind Kamble, and DICCI National President Ravi Kumar Narra were present.